The diplomacy of impartiality: Canada and Israel 1958–1968 by Zachariah Kay

Abstract

Zachariah Kay The diplomacy of impartiality: Canada and Israel 1958-1968 Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2010. 128 pp. $85.00 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-55458-187-0To say that the foreign policy of Stephen Harper's Conservative government is decidedly pro-Israel should take no one by surprise. However, as the title of Zachariah Kay's latest book, The Diplomacy of Impartiality, suggests, Canada's foreign policy toward the Middle East has not always been so one-sided. Covering Canada's relations with Israel during the period 1958-1968, successive governments, Kay argues, followed a policy of scrupulous impartiality (1).The Diplomacy of Impartiality is the last in a trilogy of short books Kay has written on the subject of Canada-Israel relations. In some respects, it is a welcome addition given the almost complete dearth of academic literature on the topic. Canada's interactions with Israel seemed to be of more interest in the 1970s and early 1980s, but other than Kay nobody has tried to engage the field of Canadian foreign relations with Israel in a meaningful way since David Bercuson published Canada and the Birth of Israel in 1985. Attention to Canada's relations with the Middle East as a whole has fared a little bit better, but only slightly.His political science background notwithstanding, Kay takes the path of a historian and bases his reconstruction of events on archival materials from the national archives of Canada and Israel. House of Commons debates are also used to give a sense of the discourse and Canada's views in dealing with Israel, although there is little use of secondary sources which could have helped strengthen the narrative and provide some much needed context in places. The crises in Lebanon and Jordan, which occurred in 1958, are dealt with (14-15), for example, but there is no explanation of the background of the events, and why they mattered to Canada.Kay's decision to deal with the 10-year span from 1958 to 1968 also seems perplexing at first. From an Israeli perspective-the second decade of its existence-it seems to make more sense, but from a Canadian perspective it is not a particularly adequate dividing line. The book starts part way through John Diefenbaker's tenure, covers Lester Pearson's time in office, and ends with Pierre Trudeau just having become Canada's prime minister. As such, one is left wondering about the backstory on Diefenbaker and wanting to know more about the direction taken by Trudeau's government.Describing Canada's foreign policy toward Israel as impartial changes the terminology a little, but does not really denote a shift in policy or a novel thesis. Canadian foreign policy, for the most part, had always been cautious and pragmatic. That was the way William Lyon Mackenzie King liked it when he became prime minister in 1921. …